1.
Barcelona
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Founded as a Roman city, in the Middle Ages Barcelona became the capital of the County of Barcelona. Barcelona has a cultural heritage and is today an important cultural centre. Particularly renowned are the works of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean is located in Barcelona, the city is known for hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics as well as world-class conferences and expositions and also many international sport tournaments. It is a cultural and economic centre in southwestern Europe, 24th in the world. In 2008 it was the fourth most economically powerful city by GDP in the European Union, in 2012 Barcelona had a GDP of $170 billion, it is leading Spain in both employment rate and GDP per capita change. In 2009 the city was ranked Europes third and one of the worlds most successful as a city brand, since 2011 Barcelona has been a leading smart city in Europe. During the Middle Ages, the city was known as Barchinona, Barçalona, Barchelonaa. Internationally, Barcelonas name is abbreviated to Barça. However, this refers only to FC Barcelona, the football club. The common abbreviated form used by locals is Barna, another common abbreviation is BCN, which is also the IATA airport code of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport. The city is referred to as the Ciutat Comtal in Catalan. The origin of the earliest settlement at the site of present-day Barcelona is unclear, the ruins of an early settlement have been excavated in the El Raval neighbourhood, including different tombs and dwellings dating to earlier than 5000 BC. The founding of Barcelona is the subject of two different legends, the first attributes the founding of the city to the mythological Hercules. In about 15 BC, the Romans redrew the town as a castrum centred on the Mons Taber, under the Romans, it was a colony with the surname of Faventia, or, in full, Colonia Faventia Julia Augusta Pia Barcino or Colonia Julia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino. It enjoyed immunity from imperial burdens, the city minted its own coins, some from the era of Galba survive. Some remaining fragments of the Roman walls have incorporated into the cathedral. The cathedral, also known as the Basilica La Seu, is said to have founded in 343
2.
Modern art
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Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with ideas about the nature of materials. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, more recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or postmodern art. Matisses two versions of The Dance signified a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting, analytic cubism was jointly developed by Picasso and Georges Braque, exemplified by Violin and Candlestick, Paris, from about 1908 through 1912. Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, collage elements, papier collé, the notion of modern art is closely related to modernism. Although modern sculpture and architecture are reckoned to have emerged at the end of the 19th century, the beginnings of modern painting can be located earlier. The date perhaps most commonly identified as marking the birth of art is 1863. Earlier dates have also proposed, among them 1855 and 1784. In the words of art historian H, harvard Arnason, Each of these dates has significance for the development of modern art, but none categorically marks a completely new beginning. A gradual metamorphosis took place in the course of a hundred years, the strands of thought that eventually led to modern art can be traced back to the Enlightenment, and even to the 17th century. The important modern art critic Clement Greenberg, for instance, called Immanuel Kant the first real Modernist but also drew a distinction, The Enlightenment criticized from the outside. The French Revolution of 1789 uprooted assumptions and institutions that had for centuries been accepted with little question and this gave rise to what art historian Ernst Gombrich called a self-consciousness that made people select the style of their building as one selects the pattern of a wallpaper. The pioneers of art were Romantics, Realists and Impressionists. By the late 19th century, additional movements which were to be influential in art had begun to emerge. The advocates of realism stood against the idealism of the academic art that enjoyed public. The most successful painters of the day worked either through commissions or through public exhibitions of their own work. There were official, government-sponsored painters unions, while governments regularly held exhibitions of new fine
3.
Catalonia
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Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, located on the northeastern extremity of the Iberian Peninsula. It is designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy, Catalonia consists of four provinces, Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. The capital and largest city is Barcelona, the second-most populated municipality in Spain, Catalonia comprises most of the territory of the former Principality of Catalonia. It is bordered by France and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, the official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan. The eastern counties of these marches were united under the rule of the Frankish vassal the Count of Barcelona, in the later Middle Ages Catalan literature flourished. Between 1469 and 1516, the King of Aragon and the Queen of Castile married and ruled their kingdoms together, retaining all their distinct institutions, Courts, and constitutions. During the Franco-Spanish War, Catalonia revolted against a large and burdensome presence of the Royal army in its territory, within a brief period France took full control of Catalonia, at a high economic cost for Catalonia, until it was largely reconquered by the Spanish army. In the nineteenth century, Catalonia was severely affected by the Napoleonic, in the second half of the century Catalonia experienced industrialisation. As wealth from the industrial expansion grew, Catalonia saw a cultural renaissance coupled with incipient nationalism while several workers movements appeared. In 1914, the four Catalan provinces formed a Commonwealth, and with the return of democracy during the Second Spanish Republic, after the Spanish Civil War, the Francoist dictatorship enacted repressive measures, abolishing Catalan institutions and banning the official use of the Catalan language again. Since the Spanish transition to democracy, Catalonia has regained some political and cultural autonomy and is now one of the most economically dynamic communities of Spain, the origin of the name Catalunya is subject to diverse interpretations because of a lack of evidence. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine chroniclers claimed that Catalania derives from the medley of Goths with Alans. Other less plausible theories suggest, Catalunya derives from the land of castles, having evolved from the term castlà or castlan. This theory therefore suggests that the names Catalunya and Castile have a common root, the source is of Celtic origin, meaning chiefs of battle. Although the area is not known to have been occupied by Celts, the Lacetani, an Iberian tribe that lived in the area and whose name, due to the Roman influence, could have evolved by metathesis to Katelans and then Catalans. In English, Catalonia is pronounced /kætəˈloʊniə/, the native name, Catalunya, is pronounced in Central Catalan, the most widely spoken variety whose pronunciation is considered standard. The Spanish name is Cataluña, and the Aranese name is Catalonha, the first known human settlements in what is now Catalonia were at the beginning of the Middle Palaeolithic. From the next era, the Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic, important remains survive
4.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
5.
Alexander Calder
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Calder’s monumental stationary sculptures are called stabiles. He also produced wire figures, which are like drawings made in space, Alexander Sandy Calder was born in 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania. His actual birthday, however, remains a source of much confusion, according to Calders mother, Nanette, Calder was born on August 22, yet his birth certificate at Philadelphia City Hall, based on a hand-written ledger, stated July 22. When Calders family learned about the certificate, they reasserted with certainty that city officials had made a mistake. His father, Alexander Stirling Calder, was a sculptor who created many public installations. Calders mother was a portrait artist, who had studied at the Académie Julian. She moved to Philadelphia, where she met Stirling Calder while studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Calders parents married on February 22,1895, his sister, Mrs. Margaret Calder Hayes, was instrumental in the development of the UC Berkeley Art Museum. In 1902, Calder posed nude for his father’s sculpture The Man Cub and that same year he also completed his earliest sculpture, a clay elephant. Three years later, Stirling Calder contracted tuberculosis, and Calders parents moved to a ranch in Oracle, Arizona, the children were reunited with their parents in late March 1906 and stayed at the ranch in Arizona until fall of the same year. After Arizona, the Calder family moved to Pasadena, California, the windowed cellar of the family home became Calders first studio and he received his first set of tools. He used scraps of copper wire that he found in the street to make jewelry for his sisters dolls, on January 1,1907, Nanette Calder took her son to the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, where he observed a four-horse-chariot race. This style of event later became the finale of Calders miniature circus performances, in the fall of 1909, the Calder family moved back to Philadelphia, where Calder briefly attended Germantown Academy, then moved to Croton-on-Hudson, New York. That Christmas, he sculpted a dog and an out of sheet brass as gifts for his parents. The sculptures are three-dimensional and the duck is kinetic because it rocks when gently tapped, in Croton, during his early high school years, Calder was befriended by his fathers painter friend Everett Shinn with whom he built a gravity powered system of mechanical trains. Calder described it, We ran the train on wooden rails held by spikes and we even lit up some cars with candle lights. After Croton, the Calders moved to Spuyten Duyvil to be closer to New York City, while living in Spuyten Duyvil, Calder attended high school in nearby Yonkers. During Calders high school years, the family moved back and forth between New York and California, in each new location, Calders parents reserved cellar space as a studio for their son. Toward the end of period, Calder stayed with friends in California while his parents moved back to New York
6.
Peter Greenaway
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Peter Greenaway, CBE is a British film director, screenwriter, and artist. His films are noted for the influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting. Common traits in his film are the composition and illumination. Greenaway was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales, to a teacher mother, greenaways family left South Wales when he was three years old and settled in Chingford, Essex, England. He attended Forest School in northeast London, at an early age Greenaway decided on becoming a painter. He became interested in European cinema, focusing first on the films of Ingmar Bergman, in 1962, Greenaway began studies at Walthamstow College of Art, where a fellow student was musician Ian Dury. Greenaway trained as a muralist for three years, he made his first film, Death of Sentiment, a churchyard furniture essay filmed in four large London cemeteries, in 1965, he joined the Central Office of Information, working there fifteen years as a film editor and director. In that time he created a filmography of experimental films, starting with Train, footage of the last steam trains at Waterloo station, tree, is a homage to the embattled tree growing in concrete outside the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank in London. By the 1970s he was confident and ambitious and made Vertical Features Remake, the former is an examination of various arithmetical editing structures, and the latter is a journey through the maps of a fictitious country. Greenaways most familiar musical collaborator during this period is composer Michael Nyman, in 1989, he collaborated with artist Tom Phillips on a television serial A TV Dante, dramatising the first few cantos of Dantes Inferno. In the 1990s, he presented Prosperos Books, the controversial The Baby of Mâcon, The Pillow Book, in 1995, Louis Andriessen completed the sixth libretto, Rosa – A Horse Drama. He is currently professor of cinema studies at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee and he also contributed to Visions of Europe, a short film collection by different European Union directors, his British entry is The European Showerbath. Nightwatching and Rembrandts JAccuse two films on Rembrandt which were released in 2007 and 2008 respectively, nightwatching is the first feature in the series Dutch Masters, with the next project titled as Goltzius and the Pelican Company. This was later reprised at the Optronica festival, London, on 12 October 2007, he created the multimedia installation Peopling the Palaces at Venaria Reale at the Royal Palace of Venaria that animates the Palace with 100 videoprojectors. On 3 May 2016, he received a Honoris Causa doctorate from the University of San Martín, in 2006, Greenaway began a series of digital video installations, Nine Classical Paintings Revisited, with his exploration of Rembrandts Night Watch in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The performance consisted of superimposing digital imagery and projections onto the painting with music from the composer Marco Robino, Greenaway exhibited his digital exploration of The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese as part of the 2009 Venice Biennial. The 50-minute presentation, set to a soundtrack, incorporates images of faces from the painting along with animated diagrams revealing compositional relations among the figures. These images are projected onto and around the replica of the painting that now stands at the original site, picassos Guernica, Seurats Grande Jatte, works by Jackson Pollock and Claude Monet, Velázquezs Las Meninas and Michelangelos The Last Judgment are possible series subjects
7.
QRpedia
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QRpedia is a mobile Web based system which uses QR codes to deliver Wikipedia articles to users, in their preferred language. QR codes can easily be generated to link directly to any Uniform Resource Identifier and it is owned and operated by a subsidiary of Wikimedia UK. QRpedia was conceived by Roger Bamkin, a Wikipedia volunteer, coded by Terence Eden, the projects source code is freely reusable under the MIT License. It also transmits the language setting of the device, if there is no version of the article available in the preferred language, then the QRpedia server offers a choice of the available languages, or a Google translation. In this way, one QRcode can deliver the same article in many languages, the projects name is a portmanteau word, combining the initials QR from QR code and pedia from Wikipedia. The projects source code is freely reusable under the MIT License, for example, the Occupy movement uses it on campaign posters. The criteria were to be effective, easy to understand and with global potential, a conflict of interest case involving QRpedia was identified as one of the main incidents leading to a 2012 review of the governance of Wikimedia UK. This conflict of interest led to the resignation of WMUK trustee Joscelyn Upendran, on 9 February 2013, WMUK announced that the intellectual property in QRpedia, and the qrpedia. org and qrwp. org domains, were to be transferred to the chapter at no cost. On 12 February 2013, Michael Peel registered two QRpedia related domain names on behalf of WMUK, on 2 April 2013, WMUK announced that Roger Bamkin and Terence Eden were transferring ownership of QRpedia to Wikimedia UK. At least one Wikimedia chapter has received letters alleging that QRpedia infringes various patents, monmouthpedia Gibraltarpedia Freopedia List of Internet encyclopedias Toodyaypedia QRpedia QRpedia statistics Qrpedia project on GoogleCode QRpedia on Twitter QRpedia on the Outreach wiki
